...or rather, the high deductible health plan or CDH?
People keep debating the merits and weaknesses of Consumer Driven Healthcare, or CDH, and its flashy centerpiece, the Health Savings Account, or HSA. The HSA is the best tax savings vehicle and the most flexible short or long term benefit there has ever been... who can complain about that? Well, see, it's that pesky required High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) that is the sticky point, and the basis of the argument that only the rich and healthy win. Valid arguments abound. But that is not the point of CDH.
Let's back up and talk about this high deductible health plan itself, out of the context of CDH, because whether people want to realize it or not, high deductible health plans along with other cost-sharing plans are and will continue to be on the rise. According a recent (September 2008) Mercer study, "Well over half (59 percent) of employers taking action to reduce their 2009 cost increase will raise deductibles, copayments, coinsurance or employee out-of-pocket spending limits... Between 2003 and 2007, the median family deductible for in-network services... rose from $1,000 to $1,500"
The fact is, whether we typical citizens want to be "consumers" of healthcare or not, we are going to have to be under any administration. We're paying more of the bills, like it or not. This happens not because our employers think it would be a great socially conscious gesture to promote consumerism, but because they simply have to reduce benefits to contain costs.
So let's, regardless of party affiliation, focus on solutions that bridge that inevitable gap, including education, cost transparency, supplemental support options such as HSA or HRA (or whatever the powers that be dream up as the next best solution). That, I believe, is called CDH... at least for now.
Heather Andrews (handrews@lighthouse1.com) is a Product Consultant at Lighthouse1, LLC
